How to kill a sale

So I figured I’d buy a new acoustic guitar.

The old one is worn out and used to be my dad’s. Neither of which is good. I’d been tempted to smash it up and mail it to him after his recent attempt to screw the family over and steal big-time from my children.

There’s a guitar shop not far away, and I found an interesting model for just under ’300. I even thought of buying one of their mandolins as well.

So today I took my old guitar to Oxfam with some baby clothes, and then went to the guitar shop.

I took the acoustic I’d looked at to the counter and asked an assistant for a hard case to protect it from knocks, moving, and little children.

He pointed me to a large rack of cases, but I mentioned that an assistant had previously stated that some of the cases were spoken for with more expensive guitars.

After a couple of minutes the assistant decided that there was actually only one hard case available. And that turned out to be too small.

After involving a few other assistants, they eventually found a battered and dirty second-hand hard case, tried the guitar, and it fitted fine. Hard case would be nearly ’60.

I just looked down on a ’350 purchase that should have felt special, but all I saw was a dirty and battered guitar case.

My enthusiasm for the sale promptly evaporated and I left without buying anything.

I’m still thinking of buying a guitar, but I’m going to try a different shop instead.

I figure there’s a morale in there somewhere. I’ll let you figure it out.